


On a Raven's Black Wing

by swimmingwolf59



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam has a service dog, I like animals a lot so there will probably be a lot of unnecessary descriptions of them, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Pet Shop AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2018-10-23 18:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10724697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingwolf59/pseuds/swimmingwolf59
Summary: Adam works at a pet store and gets to know a rude customer by the name of Ronan Lynch through the restless activities of a just as rude raven.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I technically shouldn't be writing this, since I have a million other ongoing projects right now, but this AU nestled its way into my head until I just had to get it out! I love these two to death, and I love animals as much as they do so really this was just begging to be made! Just as a warning though, it's going to take me a while to update again because life is hard. 
> 
> Anyway, I really hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!

Adam has seen a lot of strange things working at the Henrietta pet store, but this is the first time a customer’s walked in with a raven.

It’s an excruciatingly slow day. Adam had been up until three in the morning working on college essays, AP history essays, and studying for physics, and he’d already had an early shift at Boyd’s and a full day of classes before he came here. He’s exhausted down to his bones, and it’s hard to even stand upright as the minutes stretch into hours of not a single soul coming into the store. Henrietta is small so the store is hardly busy even on a good day, but it’s been a long time since utterly _no one_ has come in. It’s hard to stay motivated, even if this little hole-in-the-wall pet store is one of his favorite places.

Adam gets along superbly with animals; he probably gets along better with dogs than he’ll ever get along with humans. Dogs had been his only lifetime companions back when he’d still lived at the trailer park, and he’d gone outside often to play with them and avoid his father’s rage for as long as he could. The dogs were always happy to see him, snuffling happily as their tails wagged and wagged, piling over Adam in hopes he’d have food with him. He never did, but they didn’t seem to mind; they just loved getting attention more than anything really, and Adam loved them for it. They never cared that he was poor or that he hadn’t eaten since the day before because his dad spent all of their money on booze or that he went out to greet them with a new bruise or cracked rib. It was the closest Adam had ever come to receiving any kind of love, and he’d cherished it.

Landing the job at the pet store had been easy. After he’d moved out of his parents’ trailer for good and took residence in the small apartment above St. Agnes, he’d met Blue while she was on a dog-walking job. The two had become fast friends, and soon enough Adam was joining her on her dog-walks. Apparently the owner of the pet store, a nice old woman with the ironic name of Mrs. Calico, had noticed Adam and how well he got along with animals on one of the days he was helping Blue, and when he’d by chance called her about her help wanted sign she’d enthusiastically given him the job, no interview required. It had been baffling to Adam at the time, and he felt a little like he didn’t deserve it, but when he walked in on his first day and got along immediately with all of the animals in the store it felt a little bit more like coming home.

He spends hours at the pet store even when he isn’t working, using the space in the back to study or help out Mrs. Calico because he likes to and deep down feels like he still owes her for all of her way too generous help. Mainly, though, he’s there for the animals: their company and unique scents always comfort him in a way that nothing else could. He isn’t necessarily happy, but it’s _something_.

And though he only receives minimum wage, slowly he’s saving enough to get into a good college and get the hell out of Henrietta.

There are times, though, when the monotony of his life strikes him and he can’t fight the scratchy feeling in his throat that he’s just wasting his time sitting around _waiting_ for something to happen. He tells himself he’s working towards it, that he just needs to be patient, but on days like today it’s hard to be optimistic, even with the animals around.

He’s already cleaned out the ferrets’ and rabbits’ pens, fed the fish and turtles, played with the mice, taught the parrots some new words, and restocked the barn animal supplies, meaning he has nothing else to do but wait around for someone to come in. Usually he spends his time entertaining the lizards, but the sun isn’t low enough for any of them to have exited their slumber yet, so Adam is stuck waiting at the cashier counter.

He’s bored, a little lonely, and badly in need of coffee. It’s hard enough working three jobs (if one counted the occasional dog-walking) and going to his shitty high school all the time even _without_ worrying about staying awake. Usually Blue bounces in at some point with the dogs, painfully reminding him that he doesn’t have as much time for them anymore, to bring him some concoction from 300 Fox Way and chat with him for a while to keep his spirits up, but even she’s strangely absent today.  

Leaning his forearms on the counter, Adam lets his head rest down for a moment. It’s taking all of his energy just to keep his eyes open, and he wonders if it would _really_ be such a bad thing if he just closed his eyes for a little while. No one’s here; it should be fine for just a second…

He doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep when the door to the shop suddenly slams open. Adam jolts, his spine straightening so quickly he feels a muscle in his lower back pull. He fights back the grimace of pain and replaces it with a welcoming smile as the customer walks in. “Welcome! Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with.”

The customer just glares at him, and Adam’s neck flushes bright pink with embarrassment as he tries not to make a face. Did he catch him dozing? He stares back at the customer, his smile wavering as the awkward stand-off stretches on. The weak part of Adam can’t help but notice how strangely beautiful the customer is. If one had to pick an overall adjective to describe him, it’d be sharp – sharp jawbones, sharp mouth, sharp nose, sharp eyes. He’s tall and has a buzz cut that strangely looks good on him, the little hairs still showing suggesting that they were once curly and dark. He’s attractive, in the dark and dangerous sense of the word, and Adam doesn’t know how long they stand there staring at each other (it’s ridiculous – he’s stared at boys before but not for _this_ long) before the boy abruptly juts his chin away and stalks off down the aisle.

It’s only then that Adam notices the raven. It’s a small thing, looking barely old enough to fly as it sits on the customer’s shoulder, burrowing its body into the curve of his neck. Adam stares at the bird, wondering why it doesn’t just fly away; it doesn’t look like its wings are clipped.

Has this customer really already trained such a young bird so well?

Adam realizes he’s still staring, his eyes trailing the customer as he hesitates in front of some fresh hay and alfalfa before heading into the back area of the store where the birdseed is. He tells himself it’s just because this is the only person who has come in all day, and not because he can’t stop staring at the faintest trace of a tattoo curling out from under the customer’s raggedly cut black muscle tank.

The boy’s not even his type – he’s more for the adventurous type like Blue, not someone who looks ready to start a fight at any given second.

Just the thought of that makes him think of his dad and he cringes before finally tearing his gaze from the customer.

At least until he hears the unmistakable sound of a bag ripping and thousands upon thousands of tiny seeds cascading onto the floor. A loud shout quickly adds to the cacophony, “You motherfucking—!”

Adam stands from his stool, exasperated more than alarmed, his service dog Holly also standing from her cushion just behind the cash register, ears perked and alert. Holly’s another example of how well Adam gets along with animals: after he’d lost his hearing in one ear from a particularly hard fall due to one of his dad’s slaps, a neighbor had off-handedly commented that he should look into getting a service dog, the closest anyone in the trailer park had ever come to helping him in some way. He’d debated it for a long time, but eventually decided to get one because people snuck up so often on his deaf side that he would actually get severe anxiety attacks.

So, behind his parents’ backs, he’d looked into it. He’d sent in an application to a local agency, and after painfully dipping into a large chunk of his savings ended up with the sweetest German Shepherd puppy. The trainer had warned him that sometimes it took a while for service dogs and their owners to get accustomed to each other enough to work well, but Adam and Holly had clicked immediately. Training had only lasted five days of Adam going to the facility, too afraid to have them at home, and soon enough Holly was his.

She helps him in several ways, all having to do with his partial deafness and anxiety. She reacts and looks to things that approach or are around Adam, notifying him of something’s presence even if he can’t hear it. Whenever he has bad anxiety, she lies down on his chest and licks at his face until his breathing evens and the worst of the attack is over. She’s also technically trained to find someone who can help him when things take a turn for the worst, but even she realizes that there is no one like that in Adam’s life, besides Blue who didn’t live close enough for it to be practical, and so takes it upon herself to calm him and protect him.

She’s the best thing that has ever happened to Adam, but it made him feel bad when he had to make her sit outside at night, pretending she was just one of the neighbor dogs so his father wouldn’t get enraged and turn his beatings to her, too. He saw her as much as he could and took her with him wherever he went, but he missed her dreadfully at night when he had to nurse his own bruises and anxiety and repeat over and over to himself that everything was fine.

Everything was obviously _not_ fine, as Holly’s very existence was proof of, but she helped him more than he could ever thank her for and now that they live together in their own apartment things are better. He still feels the anxiety grip him when he’s trying to sleep, and he never will be able to hear out of his left ear again, but she and Blue continue to support him and he’s never felt luckier. He feels like he’s able to handle more now, which is a big step up from where he was before.

Though he doesn’t think even the best service dog in the world could help him handle the mess he finds when he and Holly trot over to the back aisle of the store.

The boy from earlier is kneeling on the ground, surrounded by a ginormous pile of birdseed. The bag is still sitting on the second shelf, a giant rip in the bottom continuously raining more and more seeds onto the floor. The customer’s raven is picking at the hole, trying to catch seeds in its beak as the boy grumbles and curses and tries vainly to pick up the giant mess.

It’s obvious enough what happened. For a while Adam just stares, the weariness in his bones intensifying at the thought that he’s going to have to clean that all up. Holly leans forward to sniff at the raven, who caws in warning; Adam draws his dog back with a sharp whistle that also gets the attention of the boy.

He glances up sharply, something akin to embarrassment on his face for a split second before he neutralizes his expression. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it covered! _Dammit_ , Chainsaw…”

The raven just caws at him before flapping onto his shoulder and picking at a loose thread on his shirt. Adam raises an eyebrow as the customer goes back to cursing and picking up seeds one by one. He so obviously _doesn’t_ have it covered that it’s almost amusing. “It’s not a problem; let me just go grab a broom—”

“I didn’t ask for your help!” the boy snarls before Adam can leave, his eyes narrowed in a seemingly permanent glare. Adam narrows his eyes back.

He doesn’t know what he did, but it’s obvious the customer doesn’t like him. Maybe it’s just the way he looks; the second-hand button up that he’d washed so carefully to remove the dried blood stains, the slacks that are frayed at the bottom if one looked close enough, the shoes that have only seen better days before Adam was even born. He’s not stupid – he’d seen the BMW outside. This customer is an Aglionby boy, a rich boy who likely scoffs and looks down his nose at the likes of Adam. Even if Adam was the kindest person on Earth, which he isn’t, it wouldn’t matter, because no raven boy would ever look past anything but his poverty.

If he wasn’t so angry, he would ponder on the irony that a raven boy has an actual raven. That is apparently named Chainsaw.  

He has to physically bite his tongue to prevent himself from snapping back. He’s always been terrified of his anger, afraid that he’ll someday turn into his father, but more than anything he knows it’s inappropriate for an employee to snap at a customer and he doesn’t want to lose one of the only safe places he has. “I’m sorry, but it’s in my job description to clean up any messes. I’ll be right back.”

He doesn’t let the boy retort or even make a face at him before he turns around and storms to the back room. He tells Holly to lie down on her cushion so she won’t trouble anyone as he grabs a broom and dustpan, taking one moment to compose himself before heading out again. Unsurprisingly the mess is much how he left it, if not worse because Chainsaw has moved back to pecking at the bag and chewing at more seeds as they fall out. The customer has a pile of seeds in his hands, but he obviously doesn’t know what to do with them as he stares between them and the floor with a complicated look on his face.

“Do you think you could distract your raven with those while I clean this up?” Adam asks as politely as he’s able to as he approaches them again, nodding at the seeds in the boy’s hands. The customer glares at him, looking like he’s about to snap something back, before he just nods tightly and calls Chainsaw over to the pile of seeds in his hands.

While the raven is distracted eating, Adam grabs the mostly empty bag and tosses it into the trash before returning to sweep all the remaining seeds into the dustpan. It doesn’t take as long as he had feared, and by the time he’s done Chainsaw has eaten the remainder of the seeds and has now fluttered over to stare at a cockatoo through the bars of its cage.

The customer is staring attentively at her, as if he’s considering calling her off, and Adam for some dumb reason remembers how attractive he is. Now that he’s closer he can tell that the boy forgot to shave today, the small, coarse hairs more potently defining his sharp jawbones and chin. He has a sort of dark and wild aura to him that makes Adam’s pulse race unexplainably, and he frowns. He doesn’t know why he’s so drawn to this boy, but it bothers him. He _should_ hate him; he’s no doubt the kind of person that throws his money around without a care in the world and laughs in the faces of people like Adam.

And yet the way he’s looking at Chainsaw right now is almost _affectionate_ , gentle in a way that seems so against every prejudice Adam has for this boy.

He can’t figure him out.

He realizes he’s standing there for too long staring when the customer’s sharp gaze lands on him again, and he flushes as he pointedly looks elsewhere. He doesn’t know why he’s getting so worked up – it’s not like he’ll ever see this guy again. He forces himself to look at the boy’s eyes, which are so unbelievably blue that they end up being _worse_ for his heart, and clears his throat.

“Now, are you sure there’s nothing I can help you with?” He doesn’t even bother to hide the teasing lilt of his voice.

An implausibly sharp grin etches across the boy’s features and Adam’s heart stutters a little bit. “You know, I’m usually much more competent than this. That damn bird always manages to get the better of me.”

Adam almost smiles before he catches himself and looks around, suddenly noticing a certain bird’s absence. “Where is your raven, anyway?”

“What the—?!” The customer looks around himself wildly before cursing and scrambling to his feet. “Chainsaw, you dumb shit, get back here!”

The only answer they receive is a loud, shrill squawk and Holly’s sharp barking. Eyes narrowing in barely constrained annoyance, Adam rushes back to the front, the customer hot on his heels. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’s suddenly irritated at the customer. Why can’t this guy control his damn baby bird, or at least hold onto her after the first disaster? If Holly is in danger in any way there’s definitely going to be a problem.

However, when he rounds the corner he finds the two animals engaged in what looks to be a one-sided game of tug of war. Chainsaw had apparently pecked at the rope of one of Holly’s chew toys and now holds onto it with her beak as Holly, her jaws clamped on the other end of the toy, drags her around the store. The dog’s haunches are lifted, a growl in the back of her throat, but Adam can tell it’s playful as her tail is wagging and she’s almost gently pulling Chainsaw, as if hoping the raven will pull back.

Adam can’t help but laugh – this is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever seen, even more so than the boy sitting in that pile of birdseed. There’s no way Chainsaw, the young raven that she is, would have any hope of being able to pull against Holly’s strength, and yet they’re both trying hard to win a game that is so obviously in Holly’s favor.

“What the hell…?” the boy mutters disbelievingly under his breath; Adam flinches away, as the customer had come up on his deaf side. He feels immediately embarrassed about it, but if the customer noticed he doesn’t say anything.

Instead, he’s walking towards Holly.  

“Hey, mutt!” The words and the shout are aggressive, and for a moment Adam thinks the boy’s going to _hurt_ Holly rather than just calling Chainsaw. He’s about to step in to interfere and protect his dog when the customer surprises him. Getting down on his knees, the boy roughly rubs his hands along Holly’s pelt, the dog immediately dropping the toy as she barks and rolls over in happiness to give him access to her belly. Chainsaw pecks at her hard-won toy as Adam just stares, dumbfounded. This boy looked like he was about to start a fight, _not_ lean down and give rough belly rubs to Adam’s dog.

…He just _can’t_ figure him out.

“…Um?” he says, almost hesitant to interrupt the moment. The boy has a sharp grin on his face that’s making Adam’s insides roll and churn like he’s on a roller coaster. “Did you come in here for anything specific, or…?”

“Hey, don’t rush me okay?!” the boy shouts back, and Adam has to resist the urge to roll his eyes. “It’s not like you’re doing anything useful!”

That stings a little bit more than it should and Adam bites back, “I _did_ offer my help—”

“ _Okay_ , look!” The customer stands up abruptly and stomps back towards Adam, who steps back habitually.  To his slight annoyance, Holly is ignoring his obvious discomfort, too busy basking in post-belly rub heaven. “I’ll pay for the destroyed bag, or whatever, but I just came in here for some fucking birdseed, so you can _help_ me by grabbing me two bags of it.”

Adam grits his teeth, hating the way the customer addresses him like a servant, but turns to head back down the aisle anyway. He has no choice, after all, as he _is_ the employee, but he wishes that someone so unfairly attractive didn’t have to have such a terrible personality. He seems to treat animals differently, though, which Adam can’t help but feel a kinship towards. He wonders if the customer has an easier time interacting with animals than people like Adam does, and then wonders why he cares.

This raven boy doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt, and he _certainly_ doesn’t deserve any sympathy from Adam.

He grabs two unbroken bags of birdseed and hauls them back to the counter where he starts ringing them up plus the spilled bag. The customer had finally gotten his bird under control, Chainsaw tucked contently in the crook of his arm again, and Adam wonders sourly why he didn’t just keep her there in the first place.

The customer tosses his credit card at Adam before he can even tell him the total price, and it irks him. He’s insanely jealous that this boy can just toss around his money without carefully counting every penny and doing the mental math in his head to make sure he can afford it like Adam does.

What he wouldn’t do to have that same kind of luxury.

Adam swipes the card, trying hard to make sure none of his irritation shows on his face. Despite his frustration at the other boy, he casually glimpses at the name on the shiny gray credit card, telling himself that it’s only because he’s curious.

_Ronan Lynch._

The name alone stirs a strange fire in Adam’s blood that he ultimately doesn’t know how to address. He wants to say it out loud for no reason, but he doesn’t and instead just wordlessly hands Ronan back his card and receipt. He tries not to think about the way their fingers brush clumsily during the exchange but he does anyway, wondering why Ronan’s hands are so sweaty.

His opinion of this boy is fluctuating so much that Adam has no idea what to think.

“Hey!” Ronan practically shouts suddenly, his voice louder than Adam, who’d been spacing out, had expected.

He flinches; it’s a habit that he’s never quite been able to shake. To his surprise, though, once again Holly barely flicks an ear at the customer’s loud and rowdy behavior. Usually she is the first to snap and growl if someone comes near enough to make Adam uncomfortable, or sneaks up on his deaf side. She’s trained to watch people just as closely as Adam himself does and respond accordingly, all to keep Adam safe and in a calm state of mind.

And yet she doesn’t even raise her head from her paws as Ronan stomps closer, nor had she earlier when Ronan had walked up on his deaf side. She must still be appeased by his rough belly rubs, Adam notes irritatingly.

“…Is there anything else, sir?” Adam puts on his best customer smile, but he honestly thinks Ronan and his raven have caused enough trouble for one day, both on the store and on his mind.

The aforementioned raven flutters onto Ronan’s shoulder, pecking at the loose string on his shirt again. Adam sees a hint of a smile on the boy’s features, astonishingly, but he’s turning his head away to tuck the bags of birdseed under his arms before Adam can tell if that was even real or not. Ronan nods at him sharply, once, before he heads for the door.

“…Thanks.” And then he’s gone, rushing out the same way he rushed in.

Adam lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, reaching out to grab the counter for balance. Now Holly is at his side, whining at him as she leans her body against his legs, stabilizing him. Adam closes his eyes and counts down from ten. However, even that simple task proves difficult.

Ronan Lynch. A boy who had insulted him, yelled at him, and yet smiled fondly at his raven and spoiled Holly, who didn’t see him as a threat as she had every other person who had treated Adam in such a way.

…How very strange.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan (reluctantly) returns to the pet store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg when I said it would take me forever to update again I was really hoping it wouldn't mean SIX MONTHS but uhhhh here I am ;w;" I'm so sorry it took me so long, but I hope the slightly longer chapter makes up for it! I've been working writing a little bit every day into my schedule so I'm hoping that'll help me make progress a lot faster and it won't take as long next time! But I really shouldn't promise anything... ;'3  
> Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoy flustered Ronan!

Ronan doesn’t know what brings him back to the pet store, but here he is.

Okay, no, that’s a lie, and Ronan doesn’t lie – _especially_ not to himself. He’s here because the fucking guy working at the pet store who is too beautiful for comprehension made him forget most of what he’d come in to buy yesterday, so Ronan had to suck it up and come back.

When he came back to Monmouth with nothing but two bags of birdfeed and a dazed expression on his face, Gansey had of course questioned him about it. Ronan wasn’t ready to answer the question _how could you have forgotten almost everything_ , as he was hardly even out to himself, so he’d just shrugged before holing himself up in his room for hours.

He’d eventually come back out for food, and when he did Gansey had taken a spectacular record of two seconds to convince him that he needed to go back.

He was better off not knowing that there was another boy, a dusty-haired adorable boy that was much better at convincing him to go back.

And that guy didn’t even have to try.

Before Ronan actually goes inside the pet store the second time, though, he spends a ridiculously long time sitting in his car in the parking lot, chewing on his wristbands. He can see that boy moving around in the shop windows, his fucking adorable German Shepherd following him around as he goes. Ronan sits there for about ten minutes watching him, feeling like a creep, and curses the boy the entire time.

He’s spent his whole life up to this point denying what his body had always known to be true, keeping it such a tight secret that he hadn’t even really consciously known until recently. He’d vehemently denied himself from ever wondering why he found himself looking at broad shoulders instead of boobs, at day-old stubble instead of makeup. Maybe he would’ve gone on denying it forever if that fucking guy in the fucking pet store wasn’t so goddamn _beautiful_.

He wouldn’t have had to go into the pet store at all if it wasn’t for the dumbass bird poking through an abandoned chip bag in the backseat. While Chainsaw is one of the best things he’s ever taken out of his dreams, it had quickly become evident that he didn’t have the means to take care of her. So that night, while Gansey was also racked with insomnia, they sat together in the giant replica of Henrietta and looked up nearby stores that could give Ronan what he needed to make sure Chainsaw, a warm heartbeat cupped in his hands, survived. And that had led him to the only pet store in the entire town, a small, shabby looking place running along the main street that Gansey had been quick to add to his model, for future reference he insisted.

Ronan hadn’t expected much when he’d finally mustered up the energy to go, but he _definitely_ hadn’t expected to walk in and find a cute boy completely passed out at the cash register. Ronan’s heart had stuttered so hard that Chainsaw had cawed a concerned _Kerah?_ at him, and it made him angry. He had enough shit to deal with without getting a fucking boner over the guy running the pet store.

And so, of course when the boy jolted awake and sent him that completely _adorable_ sleepy smile, Ronan had no choice but to glower back in an attempt to hide how flustered he was.

And, like everything else in his life, the rest of the trip was a complete disaster. He’d hoped to run through the store, grab everything he needed, and check out in as short of a time as possible so he wouldn’t have time to focus on the shape of the employee’s cheekbones or the broad expanse of his shoulder blades, not that he’d noticed any of that in the first place. But of course, Chainsaw had to ruin it; knocking all of that shit on the ground, forcing him into an interaction with that cute boy that Ronan had had no idea how to handle. It’s his default to be an asshole, but for once in his life he hadn’t _wanted_ to be; he wanted to be witty and charming, like his dad used to be, to leave a good impression on the boy who was forcefully dragging him out of the closet. But apparently when he was so flustered he hardly knew what to say, the only things that _could_ come out of his mouth were jabs and insults, his defensive walls rising so quickly and thoroughly around him that he wouldn’t have been able to lower them even if he’d tried.

Instead of coming off as interesting and attractive, he’d just been a grade A asshole. And he’s pretty sure he pissed that boy off, ruining anything that could’ve been.

Which is probably for the best, as Ronan seriously doubts there would’ve been anything, anyway.

It doesn’t stop him from thinking about that boy’s laugh when he’d seen Chainsaw and the German Shepherd playing tug of war together, which had nearly killed him yesterday and seems no better for his heart today. It doesn’t stop him from thinking about how warm that boy’s hands had been when their fingers had brushed awkwardly during the credit card exchange. It doesn’t stop him from thinking about how he’s going to have to go in there _again_ and that he’s probably going to make a giant fool of himself. It doesn’t stop him from thinking that he really doesn’t want to make a bad impression this time.

_Goddammit_ , why does this have to be so hard? Why can’t he just not care what that damn boy thinks, like with everybody else? What happened to his cool, nonchalant façade, the one that’s brave enough to flaunt into that pet store like nothing happened yesterday instead of sitting in his car like a loser?

He’s borderline panicking, so much so that he almost calls Gansey. However, he has no idea where his phone is and just the thought of a Dad Talk is enough to get him to muster his courage and finally get out of the damn car.

When he walks into the pet shop, that unfairly beautiful employee has settled at the ferret pen, kneeling as he apparently tries to clean their enclosure. “Tries” isn’t anything against the employee’s skill, as he seems to be stubbornly cleaning to the best of his ability under the given circumstances, but more to the fact that the ferrets are literally trying to climb up his arms. The ferrets seem overjoyed that the employee has come to play with them, their tails puffed up and their vocalizations nearly deafening with all of them squeaking at once. Two of the ferrets are dancing around, pouncing on the employee’s hands and trying to pinch the loose skin there while the other three bound up and down his arms, squeaking and rolling each other playfully.

They’re painfully cute, and Ronan finds himself smiling at their antics. When his eyes trail upwards, however, his heart clenches painfully at the happy and amused little smile on the employee’s face. He hadn’t smiled at all yesterday and it’s slowly wrecking Ronan just seeing it now. He just about dies when the employee makes little kissy faces at the ferrets, his voice pitched ridiculously high like humans so often do when talking to overexcited animals, “Hey guys, did you miss me? I missed you!”

_Jesus fuck._ Ronan feels like he’s going to keel over if he has to watch this any longer, so he forces himself to move along, his face burning. As he attempts to casually pass by the employee, hoping to God that he’s too involved with the ferrets to notice him, he side-eyes him and catches a glimpse of his nametag. _Adam_ , it says.

_Adam_.

Chainsaw flutters restlessly in the crook of his elbow, and he strokes her beak to calm her as he stalks towards the birdfeed aisle. He bought more than any bird would ever need yesterday, but he hopes that the other things he needs are also down this aisle. As they turn the corner, he hisses lowly to Chainsaw so that the store attendant— _Adam_ — can’t hear. “If you knock a bunch of birdseed onto the floor again I’m sending you back to the dream world!”

She just chortles, as if that’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard, before hopping onto his shoulder and ducking into the hood of Ronan’s hoodie. It’s her favorite hiding spot, and Ronan wouldn’t be at all surprised if one day he flipped up the hood and a pile of bird shit and food scraps came showering down onto his head. Either that or she’ll eventually dig her way through the fabric, with how eagerly she picks at the threads.  

He thinks about flipping his hood up suddenly just to mess with her when a soft voice behind him makes him jump. “Can I help you?”

He spins around. It’s Adam – of course it is. There’s no one else in the store. He grimaces; he’d really been hoping he could avoid another confrontation. “Just browsing.”

It’s not technically a lie, as Ronan _is_ browsing, having taken one look at Adam and completely forgetting what he’d come in to buy.  

Adam raises an eyebrow, which only serves to draw Ronan’s attention to the adorable splash of freckles across the bridge of his nose. _Fuck!_ Why did he have to embarrass himself in front of the cutest fucking guy ever?! The beginnings of a smirk twitch Adam’s lips upwards, apparently amused by Ronan’s struggle. “Oh? Since you were just here yesterday I assumed you forgot something.”

“I did. A birdcage. For this asshole.” He indicates Chainsaw, as if it wasn’t obvious, and then feels incredibly stupid. He’s relieved to have at least remembered one thing, but he has still managed to forget what the rest of what he’d forgotten to get yesterday was, which really only proves how unstable his mind is at the moment. It doesn’t help that he’d barely slept, and when he had he’d brought a half-dead night terror back with him that he’d then had to kill and bury in the yard, all without waking Gansey.  

“You didn’t have the supplies for her already?” Adam seems surprised, and Ronan glowers.

“I just found her a couple of days ago.”

Adam’s eyebrows shoot up. “You _found_ her? Like on the side of the road?”

Ronan doesn’t lie, but he can’t tell the truth either, so he just continues to glower. Adam seems to take his silence as a confirmation, which Ronan is more than happy to let him believe. Adam frowns as he reaches up to gently stroke his finger against the soft feathers along Chainsaw’s beak. His hand is unreasonably close to the back of Ronan’s neck, making him involuntarily shudder. He expects Chainsaw to caw out a warning, like she does at Gansey, but instead she leans into the touch, making a low, content croaking sound in her throat.

Ronan is dumbfounded.

“You’re not supposed to pick up baby birds if they’ve fallen out of their nest in case their mother is still around,” Adam says. Ronan nearly growls at him, but the other boy continues before he can, “Have you taken her to the vet at least? To make sure she’s alright?”

He knows for a fact that she’s alright, as she had come out of his head, and even if she wasn’t no vet would be able to help her, but he can’t say that either. His silence is again apparently telling, and Adam’s frown pinches his forehead into cute little lines that Ronan is trying very hard not to stare at. Eventually he holds out his hand to Chainsaw. “Can I…?”

Usually Ronan would say no, but Chainsaw has already shown that she doesn’t mind Adam’s presence, and to be honest Ronan doesn’t either. So he angles his back towards Adam’s hand, encouraging the baby raven to hop out of the hood and onto Adam’s wrist. She carefully rubs her beak along his large knuckles, which Ronan suddenly notices with an aching and alarming shoot of arousal.

While Adam inspects Chainsaw, Ronan inspects Adam’s hands, following scars up and down his long fingers and staring at the rough and raw beauty of his wrists. He half-listens to Adam rambling on about signs for bird illness, too caught up in watching as Adam’s slightly crooked fingers, as if they’d been broken before, gently lift Chainsaw’s wings, apparently checking if she has any lumps on her body or overly ruffled feathers. After finding nothing, he leans in closer to Chainsaw’s face to check her eyes or some shit like that. Ronan in turn checks out Adam’s eyes, wondering about the odd but attractive blue color of them. He wonders what would happen if he said they were pretty, but is luckily distracted from that horrible thought as Adam uses a scarred finger to pet Chainsaw’s head, smiling as the raven croaks and leans into his touch.

Ronan suddenly feels like he has to sit down. The intimacy of watching Adam’s beautiful hands inspect his mind’s creation feels too intense to handle.

“She looks okay, but you should really get her checked out just in case,” Adam says eventually, breaking Ronan out of his reverie. He holds up his hand so Chainsaw can hop onto Ronan’s shoulder, which the raven does happily before burrowing herself into the crook of Ronan’s neck. Her body is warm and her heartbeat is soothing against his skin; he focuses on her presence to ground himself before he drowns in the expanse of Adam’s freckles. There’s even one right in the center of the knuckle of his thumb, which really shouldn’t be as cute as it is.

Fucking hell.

“Anyway, you said you needed a birdcage, right? We have several to choose from.” Adam walks off down the aisle and Ronan follows after him in a daze. He can’t focus, and walking behind Adam is definitely _not_ helping that. His gaze is so obviously focused downwards that for a moment he doesn’t even notice that Adam has stopped walking, almost crashing into him. “What kind of cage were you looking for? Flight cage, dometop, classic?”

When Ronan just stares blankly at him, Adam rolls his eyes before focusing on Chainsaw, studying her. “Your raven is definitely the active type and she seems to enjoy lots of interaction, so you’ll want a dometop or a playtop… And since you found her outdoors, she’ll want to be outside more often than not, so you should probably get a playtop. And a pretty big one, since a raven’s wingspan can grow to almost five feet…”

Ronan doesn’t have an inkling of an idea how to contribute to this conversation, so he just lets Adam continue rambling as he reaches up to finger the various cages lined along the wall. Ronan definitely doesn’t watch the way his back muscles stretch as he does. “These ones are the most solid construction-wise, which I think would be good for such an active raven… This one has larger access doors, but this one comes with convenient feeder doors…”

Suddenly Adam turns to Ronan inquisitively. “Do you prefer swing-out doors or hinged doors?”

Ronan raises an eyebrow and shrugs. “Do I look like I give a fuck?”

What he doesn’t say is that he could listen to Adam ramble on and on for hours.

Adam frowns at that, and Ronan maybe feels guilty. Just a little bit. “You _should_ give a fuck, since she’s your fucking raven.”

He has the guts to stand up to him; Ronan is deeply impressed. He didn’t think he would find someone brave enough to fight back with him in the dusty corners of Henrietta. “…Just pick what you think is best.”

Adam looks like he’s contemplating how best to murder Ronan for a moment before turning back to the birdcages. His brow is furrowed even more than before, as if he’d been given the biggest puzzle of his life, as he mutters to himself and examines each one of the birdcages. Chainsaw starts to fuss on Ronan’s shoulder, ruffling her wings and starting to make strange clucking sounds in the back of her throat. Having come prepared, Ronan digs a chip out of the cluttered expanse of his sweatshirt pocket and tosses it up in the air, watching her black wings stretch gracefully as she leaps into the air to reach for it. She clasps the chip in her beak before landing on the shelf near Adam’s head, depositing it onto the shelf and pecking at it curiously.

Ronan watches her fondly before realizing that Adam is done picking out a cage and is staring at him strangely. Feeling embarrassed again, Ronan clears his throat and forces himself to meet the other boy’s gaze head on. Adam’s eyebrow rises slightly before he says, “Is there anything else?”

Adam helps Ronan pick out some perches to go in the cage, some cleaning supplies for the cage, a water dish, and a large variety of little toys for Chainsaw, including a tattered blanket with a hamburger on it (“because she’s American,” Ronan had insisted, when Adam had rolled his eyes at the selection) for her to peck to pieces instead of Ronan’s sweatshirt, before they’re finally heading to the register. Ronan has been long ready to leave, as he seriously thinks that being in Adam’s presence for this long is giving him heart disease. Adam’s eye rolls are addicting with how attractive he is when he does it, and his little smirks whenever Ronan says or does something stupid is almost too much to handle.

Ronan needs to get out of here as quickly as possible so he can lie down somewhere and contemplate the complicated direction his life has taken. Or scream and throw things at the wall. Whichever.

As Adam’s ringing him up, his adorable dog comes out from behind the counter, wagging her tail as she looks up at Ronan expectedly. Ronan grins upon seeing her; he’s always loved dogs, ever since he was a child. He loves all animals really, a result of his upbringing on a farm no doubt where countless of dogs and other animals ran around the grounds at all times.

He’s especially always had a soft spot for German Shepherds, however.

 Carefully kneeling down, he reaches out to scratch behind the dog’s ears. It’s only as he pats down her neck, however, that he notices the service-dog vest strapped around her torso. He freezes for a second, frowning in confusion. He’s pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a vest yesterday…but even so, it means she’s with Adam because he has some kind of disability, right? As he side-glances the beautiful boy punching in numbers on the cash register, he can’t help but wonder what he needs a service dog for. He remembers him flinching when he’d come up on his left side the other day, but he’d thought that was just because he’d startled him by suddenly being so close. Could it be that it’s actually because he’s got some kind of problem hearing…?

Not that he’s going to ask.

Instead he resumes petting the dog and asks, “What’s this little rascal’s name?”

“Hm?” Adam glances down at him, obviously distracted, before a warm smile lights up on his face. Ronan’s heart stops dead for a moment before he realizes Adam is looking at the dog, not him. “Oh, that’s Holly. She’s real friendly.”

Something of a Southern drawl comes out in that last sentence that Ronan’s never heard before, and his heart squeezes tightly. Goddammit, why does everything new he finds out about this boy just make him feel like setting himself on fire?!

He fiercely ignores the affection rising in his chest and instead moves his hands down to rub along Holly’s belly. The dog yelps happily, eagerly rolling onto her back and displaying her belly for Ronan to rub. “Holly, huh? Who’s a good girl, Holly, is it you??”  

Ronan is so busy giving Holly the best belly rubs of her life that he almost misses it when Adam doubles over himself laughing. When it does register, though, Ronan’s breath completely leaves him; Adam is beautiful when he laughs, with his face freer than it usually is and his mouth wide open to show rows of beautiful, white teeth. He’s gaping so much that Holly has to whine to get his attention to pet her again, and he almost forgets that he’s supposed to be embarrassed as he resumes petting her. It takes him a while to drag up the façade, but he eventually growls out, “What the hell is so funny?”

“It’s just—” Adam can’t seem to stop laughing, even to speak, and Ronan wonders if God would strike him down right there if he kissed him. “Aren’t you supposed to be like, a scary gangster or something? And instead you’re here fussing over my dog!”

Ronan _does_ feel embarrassed then, realizing how wide open he’s left himself to this complete stranger. Standing up abruptly, he shoves his hands into his pockets and pastes on his best glower. “I _am_ a scary gangster!”

Adam just rolls his eyes, his sides still shaking with laughter, and fuck him he looks beautiful even doing _that_. “Whatever you say, Lynch.”

Ronan startles, dropping his fake gangster act in an instant as he stares wide-eyed at Adam, who at least has the decency to look embarrassed. “How the fuck do you know my name?”

“I…I looked at your credit card yesterday,” Adam admits, a faint flush on his cheeks. It pronounces his freckles and Ronan feels dizzy.

“What’s your name?” Ronan breathes, and he doesn’t quite catch the words back in time to hide how interested he is. He tries to play it off nonchalantly anyway by adding, “It’s only fair, since you know my name.”

Smooth, Ronan. Real fucking smooth.

“Adam Parrish,” Adam says quietly. Ronan has the sudden unexplainable urge to go running down the sidewalk screaming this beautiful boy’s name to get rid of the energy about to explode out of his chest.

“Well, Parrish,” Ronan says after a painful beat of silence. He doesn’t trust himself to call him Adam; he knows he won’t be able to hide his feelings if he does. “I can be a scary gangster and still like dogs. Hating dogs is just immoral.”

Adam’s small smile then is worth every moment Ronan has ever embarrassed himself in front of him. Jesus Christ. “I think so too. If someone says they hate dogs I immediately don’t trust them.”

“Damn straight.”

The silence that stretches after that feels slightly awkward, if only because Ronan feels like he should try and keep the conversation going and doesn’t know how. He angrily wonders why he even cares, but he knows why, and the feeling eats away at him from the inside. Dammit, why does he have to be like this?

Adam breaks the silence briefly to tell Ronan the total price, but he still can’t think of anything to say so he just wordlessly hands his credit card over. He doesn’t even really register the price, it doesn’t matter to him, and instead focuses on picking up the bags from the counter. Chainsaw flies out from the aisle she’d been exploring and lights down onto his shoulder, pecking his neck in greeting.

Ronan glances up at Adam to find him already looking back. Awkwardness creeps up in his chest again, but his face is carefully neutral as he says, “Well, Parrish. I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah. Have fun doing scary gangster things.”

Ronan has to bite back a smile at that one, but he doesn’t quite succeed. “Oh trust me, I will. I’ve been looking forward to my shenanigans all day.”

Adam rolls his eyes, one final twist of the knife in Ronan’s heart. “Don’t scandalize any old ladies.”

“I make no promises.” Ronan smirks devilishly as he begins to walk towards the door. His heart doesn’t really want to leave, but his brain is already desperate to be out, desperate to get away from this boy who makes him feel so incredibly exposed.

Chainsaw caws at Adam on their way out, like a farewell, and Ronan’s smirk falls back into a fond smile.

He smiles all the way until he pulls back into the parking lot at Monmouth, and then it completely drops into a heavy scowl when he sees Declan’s Volvo parked next to the Pig.

Damn, he is _so_ not ready for this.

He contemplates sitting in the car or driving out somewhere else, but goddammit he’s _tired_ and just wants to lie in bed with a beer and think about Adam. So he reluctantly gets out of the car, picks up Chainsaw and all of her supplies from the passenger seat, and slams the door shut extra hard. The noise sets a car alarm off somewhere across the street and Ronan grins, satisfied that everyone else can now be as irritated as he is.

Banging the door to Monmouth open with his boot, Ronan stalks in, fully intent on ignoring Declan entirely and retreating to his room. However, he hadn’t been expecting his older brother to be standing right near the door, so Declan practically corners him before Ronan can even move out of the doorway. Gansey is hovering near the couch, thumb to his lip and his brow creased in concern. He looks irritated too, as irritated as a Gansey is allowed to look, and Ronan wonders with a hot flash of anger how long fucking Declan has been here bothering him. It’s no secret that the brothers don’t get along, but Declan could at least leave Gansey out of it.

Lip curling, Ronan bares his teeth at his brother, ready to start throwing punches already. Declan looks about ready to start a fight too, and Ronan childishly hopes he does.  

“Ronan, where the hell have you been? You obviously didn’t go to school—” Declan stops abruptly and ogles Chainsaw perched on Ronan’s shoulder. “…Is that a crow?”

“No, she’s a raven you dumb shit,” Ronan just about growls. Chainsaw caws indignantly from his shoulder.

Declan looks furious, which fills Ronan with glee. “Ronan, what have I told you about—?” He breaks off again, suddenly seeming to remember that Gansey is in the room with them. A blissfully ignorant Gansey that Ronan wants to keep that way. “Never mind, we’ll discuss that later. I came here to talk about the fact that _someone_ has been trespassing at the Barns.”

Ronan gasps dramatically. “No!”

Declan rolls his eyes, which disturbingly reminds Ronan of Adam. “Don’t even bother, I know it was you.”

“You have no proof.”

“If you didn’t want me to know it was you, you shouldn’t have left your damn bedsheets a mess! Not only that, but your _hair_ is still in the bathroom wastebasket from the last time you shaved your head, which looking at you right now was rather recent!” Declan shouts, already fed up. Ronan feels proud of being able to work him up so quickly. “It was obvious you were there!”

“’It was obvious you were there,’” Ronan mocks under his breath.

Declan looks absolutely murderous. “Goddammit Ronan, why do you always do this? You know damn well what dad’s will says!”

Yes, he does – that damn thing gives him nightmares. Ronan still can’t figure out why his dad would ban them from the only place he’s ever felt like he belonged, or why he felt like he needed to write the same sentence twice in two different languages:

_This will stands as fact unless a newer document is created._

It drives him fucking nuts.

“It just doesn’t make any sense – why the fuck would dad kick us out of our own home?!” Ronan shouts, angry and feeling the need to punch something. Declan looks more and more like a likely candidate as time goes by.

“Don’t ask me why dad did what he did because I don’t know! I _never_ knew!” To Ronan’s surprise, Declan looks bitter for a moment before his face falls back into the carefully neutral mask that is more familiar.

It drives Ronan up the wall realizing that he and Declan are similar in that regard, and his fists curl at his sides.

Declan must’ve noticed him do it because he abruptly looks tired, like dealing with this exhausts him down to his very bones. Ronan wonders why he even bothers, if it gives him so much of a headache; they never make any progress, just have the same damn arguments all of the time, and Ronan would be just fine if Declan fucked off and he never saw him again. The only thing keeping them together anymore is Ronan’s desire to see Matthew and Declan’s apparent reluctance to separate the three of them, despite the rifts. “Look, Ronan, just stay off the property for a while, alright? I’m doing my best to work with the lawyers and get this all settled out, but you’re not helping matters by breaking and entering illegally all the goddamn time.”

“It’s not breaking and entering if it’s our own fucking home!” Ronan shouts, surging forward with a burst of anger. He grabs Declan’s shirt collar in his fist, dragging him closer. “And you’re not doing jack shit! If you truly cared about the Barns you would’ve sorted this out already!”

Declan grabs Ronan’s shirt back and nearly drags him off his feet when he pulls him forward; Ronan _hates_ that Declan is just that much stronger than him. “Do _not_ fucking stand there and talk to me like you know _anything_ about law! At least I’m _trying_ to do something – what are _you_ doing? Just fucking around and getting drunk, which I can assure you, does _nothing_ to get the Barns back! If _you_ truly cared about the Barns maybe you wouldn’t be sitting on your ass every damn day!!”

Ronan recoils like he’s been slapped. His hands are shaking from the force of his anger and he can hardly process anything, just Declan and his stupid fucking face and his words that ring too close to home. All he can think about is his desire to get in a fight, and he’s stepping forwards with his fist raised before he even knows what’s happening.

But suddenly, Gansey is at his side, holding him back, his clammy hands covering Ronan’s burning fist. “Ronan, _no_. Please.”

Ronan hates that he can never say no to Gansey. He wants to beat the shit out of Declan because he needs to get rid of this anger, this _pain_ , but going against Gansey is completely against Ronan’s moral code. So he drops his fist, sends Declan one last menacing glare, and pushes past him to storm into his room. He haphazardly drops Chainsaw’s supplies on the floor and sets the raven gently down on his bed. Afterwards he stalks out to the kitchen/bathroom/laundry to grab a beer and then stomps through the living room again to go right back outside, slamming the door behind him.

As usual after a Declan visit, he goes for a drive.

The exhaustion he felt earlier is replaced with an omnipresent anger, throbbing under his veins and pulsing to the beat of his EDM. He hates this situation and he hates Declan for always having to rub his nose in it when all he wants is to go home. All he wants is to sit in the field at the Barns and listen to the cows moo and the chickens cluck and forget that he has obligations outside of maintaining the only place he’s ever truly felt at home. He wants to sleep in his old room and pretend that his life never went to shit, that he doesn’t spend every day feeling like he’s in living hell. The moments he steals when he sneaks onto the property illegally isn’t enough, could never be enough, and the Barns just isn’t the same when it isn’t packed full of people, with Aurora knitting in the living room and the brothers tussling at her feet. Every inch of the property brings back memories that physically hurt Ronan, but he can’t stay away; the Barns is what makes him Ronan, more than his dreams, more than his moral code. He feels like a chunk of himself is missing when he isn’t at the Barns, making him uncomfortable and angry everywhere else.

He just wants the Barns back. And Declan only seems to want to fight Ronan on that.

So he drives. He drives until he’s pushing down the highway as fast as the BMW can go, wind whipping through him from the rolled down windows and his fingers tapping an erratic beat on the steering wheel. The long stretch of highway before he gets to his go-to runaway place is where he bleeds out his anger, his frustration, his pain, his grief, so that he feels numb and raw and ready to accept the warm wonders of the forest.

He calls it Cabeswater, because it reminds him of his dream forest, but of course it can’t be. That forest only exists in his head, and he can’t drive to it even if he wanted to. But this forest, this unnamed, strangely deserted forest, is second best, and Ronan feels a trickle of ease filter through him that’s oddly reminiscent of the Barns as he slows down upon passing the first line of trees.

Later, Ronan realizes he would’ve died if he hadn’t slowed down just then. He’s not really sure why he slowed down at all, really, just that he doesn’t like speeding through the forest, knowing very well that an animal could leap out from the trees at any moment. He also likes taking his time through there, watching out for wildlife, observing how the trees slowly change color the closer they get to fall.

He thinks he sees a raven sitting in a branch far up in the canopy, and he’s bending forward over the wheel to try and see better when something suddenly leaps out of the brush and onto the road in front of him. Both of them are going too fast for Ronan to tell what it is exactly, a deer of some sort, but luckily his body reacts before his mind does.

Slamming the brakes, Ronan veers the car wildly to the right, missing the animal by a hair. The deer-like creature startles badly as Ronan whizzes by it, and it dashes off across the road and disappears into the bushes on the other side. Ronan doesn’t even get the chance to breathe a sigh of relief that he didn’t hit it before the BMW crashes headfirst into a tree.

He blacks out for a second, a minute, an hour. When he wakes up, the air bag is in his face, his phone is ringing obsessively from wherever he’d thrown it in the car sometime earlier in the week, and his mouth tastes like blood. He has neither the energy nor the spatial awareness to find his phone, so once he gets the air bag out of the way he stumbles out of the car to survey the damage. The front of the BMW is completely wrapped around the tree and there’s ominous black smoke rising from the hood.

Which means there’s no way in hell he’s going to be able to drive back to Monmouth.

Groaning, Ronan crouches onto the ground and punches his knees angrily.

God fucking _dammit_.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kaoru_of_hakone) or [tumblr](https://swimmingwolf59.tumblr.com/) to chat about pynch or anything else! :) I mainly use twitter, but I believe my ask box is open on tumblr I just don't know how anything works lol so if it's not please let me know!


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